I am in such a bad mood now. I had an argument with 2 other creatives at the office. I was trying to explain to them that arabic typography is difficult and they wouldn’t get it. I have 3 logos I need to create arabic type for, they want it today. I explained to them that this isn’t an easy thing. It needs time. One of the creative insisted its an easy thing and doesn’t need time at all. I went ahead and explained to them that 2 of the 3 english logo-types I need to convert are located in a box. This causes problems with the arabic since the arabic typeface will have the letter “Ya” which will have dots that will fall below the baseline. This means the hight of the arabic type will be higher then the english. I can’t change the size of the box so that will be a problem. The guy wouldn’t listen and told me he would do it. I of-course refused since I am the best guy for this job and I would be afraid anyone else who attempts it will end up killing the logos. I really hate it when people don’t get it.

Today was the coolest, I did something I never did before, I spray painted in broad daylight. I woke up early today like 10ish. Nat went out shopping so I was home alone. So to pass the time I decided to cut out a new stencil so I could spray paint it. I decided to do one related to Samir Geagea since its currently Samir Geagea week in Lebanon. When I was done with my stencil around an hour and a half later I decided to just go out and try it. I didnt have anything else to do so I was like fuck it lets just go. I went to the regular construction site I usually spray paint at and tagged the walls. When I was done I drove around trying to find another construction site when I spotted something. You know the huge sewage system they are installing all over Salmiya? Well they have these huge concrete stuff laid out all over the place so I started tagging them. I must have tagged atleast 20 different ones all over Salmiya. It was really cool plus they are gonna burry the things later so no harm done. I did learn one thing today, don’t spray paint against the wind..

Was dropping off nat to work when we spotted this picture under the traffic light. At first I thought it was a picture of a teenager who had gotten killed in a traffic accident and this was some sort of memorial for him. Turns out its an ad for this musician called Marzougaleid or something. Who comes up with these stupid ideas?

If you remember last month I posted about the new terrible BKME logo. Well since then I heard that the logo was done by an international agency (hard to believe) and I heard another story that it was designed by Horizon here in Kuwait (more believable). Yesterday I also got an email from someone called Jeeb, this is what he had to say about BKME and the logo:

The sphere isn’t only about a pearl, a BKME personnel indicated to me that two pepole reaching each other are actualy represented inside! I said who in the world would know or see that? By the way when copied, the “pearl” or “human reaching each other” logo goes white! Vanishes..

It also took me 2 days to open an account! Still confused, I received 6 e-mails with 6 user numbers bkmeonline/e-trading, which one to use? Why the guy kept telling “use another username this one is giving an error”? Now, ofcourse, i can’t use any of them, each had a password which i don’t remember now!! Bmke didn’t reply, i have to waite till sunday. Talking about making “life simple” for us!!!

I drew with a red line what “might” be 2 guys, one seems very fat. Also I can understand about the terrible service, when I tried calling them to ask about the logo 2 weeks ago it took me all morning to get a hold of someone..

There are many occasions when I need Dummy Text for my work. I might be working on a layout or an ad and I need some text to work as place holders until the final text is ready. So, instead of typing gibrish or using InDesign’s lipsum “Fill with placeholder text” option, I use an online real text generator. You tell it how many paragraphs you need and it will give the amount back. Here is the link.

Although many people tend to disagree, I really love the way the BMW 7 series looks like. Its big, and its different. Maybe at first it was a bit hard to absorb it but now that its been on the streets for some time its easier to understand. Since many people though complained about the look, BMW went and gave it a minor facelift. I think it looks worst worse now, check out what they did to the cars rear, it looks terrible.. [Link]

I have been trying to call them since 8:30 in the morning. I was calling them on 812000 and when it asks if I was a customer or not, I would choose No I am not. Then I would get the corny message that they would like it if I would join them, then the phone rings and no one picks up. So finally I got fed up after trying for over 2 hours to get a hold of someone. Now when I called I pressed 1 which is the option for if you are a BKME customer. Right away someone picked up. I asked them what the circle in the logo was, the lady answered a pearl. I said thank you and closed the phone.

So the sphere turned out to be a pearl like we all assumed in the first place.

Since my post the other day on the new BKME logo I have heard two definitions for the sphere. The first is that its not a pearl its the moon. The second definition is that its a crystal ball. Both sources for these answers were BKME employees. So I decided I will contact BKME myself and find out. I sent them an email 2 days ago and I didn’t get a reply. I called them up last night and believe it or not their customer support line works only during regular working hours! So since today morning I have been trying to contact them on 812000 but no one is picking up. If I was planning on being a new customer I would have moved on and looked elsewhere by now. I will keep trying to call and will post when I find out anything.